The Kitchen Sink Bean Salad

This is a great thing to make when you're about to go out of town, or just want to clean out your fridge. This is just a basic bean salad recipe, that can be completely customized and modified to your taste and supplies.

The basics... I would say you definitely need some tomato, a can of some type of beans, and some onion. Other than that, everything is really interchangeable. The key is to cut all ingredients to about the same size, and adding the right amount of liquid. I kept all of the ingredients besides the beans raw, to stay with the spirit of traditional salad, but some ingredients might need to be baked or blanched.

For my salad... I used the following recipe:

1 cup/can chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 cup raw corn, cut off of the cob

1 cup tomato, diced

1/2 cup raw zuccini, sliced thin on the mandoline and then roughly chopped

1/2 raw onion, slided thin on the mandoline and then roughly chopped

1/4 cup chopped cilantro

half of a fingerhot pepper, diced

For the dressing... my full salad was about 4 cups. I found that about 3 Tbsp oil and 3 Tbsp acid worked well for this amout. For the oil, obviously you can add olive or canola. For the acid, you can use any type of vinegar or citrus. It just depends on the flavors you want.

Because I was using cilantro and hot pepper, I was going for a more mexican tasting dish. So I used 3 Tbps olive oil, 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar, 1 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon. (Should have used lime!) Add salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation is easy. Chop all veggies to desired size. In a separate bowl, whisk dressing ingredients. Pour over veggies and stir it up! This is best if the flavors marinade together for about a half an hour, but is fine to eat right away. Serve in a stemless wine glass for something fancy!